Backing Up Game Files with GameSave Manager

It can be heart-wrenching to lose your game saves. Hundreds of hours lost to the ether! And since games use a variety of different file paths to save your progress, it can be difficult and tedious to track down all of your save files so you can back them up. GameSave Manager deals with both of these problems. It tracks down your save files, settings, screenshots – wherever they might be – and stores them all in one place that you can use as a back up or as a way to travel with your game saves. Today we’re just going to cover how to use GameSave Manager as a backup service for your save data.

Step 1: Download and Run GameSave Manager

Head over to the GameSave Manager site¬†and download the service. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Windows though – sorry Mac and Linux users. Extract the files from the .zip you downloaded and run the application. One of the handy aspects of GameSave Manager¬†is that you can choose to keep it as a portable application or install it, whichever works for you. The application will then access their list of “Officially Supported” games in their database and do a scan through your PC to find game files that match.

Step 2:¬†Select Your Files

Once it’s ready, you’ll come to the main menu screen. As you can see, there’s quite a few ways you can use GameSave Manager¬†but we’re just going to focus on the top left option – Backing up. Click on the “Make a backup” link and you’ll be taken to your list of game files that GameSave Manager supports. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of indie games they support, however looking through the list of games ready for back up I noticed a few missing. For most people though you probably won’t find many games missing. You can check out the full list of games on their site if you’re looking to back up a specific game. There are over 4,000 entries¬†on the list so it’s safe to say that most of your games are supported. If you do find any of your favorite games aren’t supported, you can also always submit them to GameSave Manager so that they can add it to the database.

On top of the games, GameSave Manager¬†also saves some other game-related files: Steam screenshots, categories, Games for Windows LIVE profile info, game recording software settings (great if you’re a Let’s Player or Twitch streamer), and even Ventrilo and Teamspeak info. Most software you use with your games can also be backed up with GameSave Manager.

While on this screen you can check any warnings that may come up for certain games – for example Team Fortress 2’s files came with a warning: “This GameSave directory contains cached graphics and custom content, which could make your Backup VERY large!” Warnings like this are very helpful – you don’t want to go to make a backup only to find out it’s too large to save it where you need it. Some of the warnings are just notes letting you know that only certain types of content or folders will be saved. Make sure to check all the warnings just in case.

Step 3: Create a Backup

Once you’ve selected all the files you want saved, click the blue file in the upper right-hand corner. You’ll choose where the file gets saved, so you can save it to your cloud storage of choice. I have a pretty substantial library of games and recording software files so I expected it to take ages. It took a little under 10 minutes. It got a bit hung up on the files of my MMOs, probably just due to the sheer number of screenshots I’ve taken in those games. Games that used stand-alone mods or Steam Workshop mods also took a bit more time for GameSave Manager to work through.¬†And for making a back up, that’s really all there is to it!

If you game a lot like I do and want to make sure GameSave Manager keeps up with your own game progress, you can go back to the main menu and click on “Scheduled Task” and setup scheduled backups of all your games or just certain ones. You can backup on a daily, weekly or monthly basis – or even on minute basis if you’re really worried about losing progress.

In conclusion…

If you’re really keen on making sure you don’t lose your screenshots, saves, game settings, and game-related software settings then GameSave Manager is definitely the program for you. It’s easy, quick, and you can set it up so you don’t have to think about it anymore. Next time I’ll show you how to use the files that GameSave Manager creates to restore lost or old files.